Oh, the Madness
by Calliope Muse
Summary: "Absolutely!" she cried, and knowing a battle when I saw one, I immediately threw down the metaphorical gauntlet and challenged her to a thumb war, which I totally would have won if Rachel did not have freakishly agile fingers. I hoped she would get arthritis in her later years.


**HELLO! Miss me? Yeah, you probably did not. But that's okay. I forgive you.**

**This is the first chapter of the new and improved version of the greatest fan fiction of all time! Gosh, that is such an exaggeration. I can honestly tell you that there is much better material for you to be reading on this website. But I can also honestly say that this fanfic is much better than some other stuff I've seen lately.**

**So, dear readers, I am sort of a little proud to present to you my pride and joy, **_**Oh, the Madness**_**, brought to you by Kellogg's Frosted Flakes!**

**Anti-Disclaimer: My real name is Rick Riordan, and I am the creator of Percy Jackson and the Olympians.**

**On the off chance that you did not catch it, the previous statement was my attempt at a terrible joke. I know, I know. You don't care.**

**Okay. Bye.**

_**Nico di Angelo, Son of Hades, Hater of Nugget Thieves**_

It's funny, really, how your life can change so suddenly that you hardly believe it actually happened. Like it's a really strange dream, or you're watching TV and a stupid show comes on, and you are just staring at the screen, scratching your head and thinking, _what the Hades? _ Like you can't believe the stupidity of it all. It's that disconcerting.

My day started out normal enough. I woke up at noon, rolled out of bed and stumbled to the showers, where I enjoyed a forty five minute trance standing under a stream of hot water. Once I was dressed, I shuffled, still in a half-asleep daze, toward the dining pavilion, where lunch was being served.

I ignored the disapproving glances shot towards me by Chiron. No pony was going to guilt trip me into waking up at the ungodly hour of seven in the morning just to go make a Popsicle stick model of the Parthenon. Nico doesn't roll that way.

The Trek of Shame to the food table didn't really bother me. I grabbed a plate and silverware, a magic cup, and loaded my plate with food prepared by our local Harpies. A mountain of chicken nuggets and French fries soon erected itself on my plate.

At my table, all alone and pondering the questions of life (mainly the mystery of which part of a chicken produced the nugget), I prepared to eat my glorious feast. But then that plan went to Tartarus when our resident Oracle, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, plopped herself on the bench across from me, stole my plate, and ate half my nuggets before I could even bring myself to come to terms with the departure of my precious meal.

"What do you want? Give me my nuggets!" I shouted, making a mad grab for the plate. Like a ninja, she pulled the plate from my reach and slid off the bench.

"No. But I'll tell you what I can give you."

"And what's that?"

"An opportunity." Annabeth Chase, a tall, thin, blonde psychopath genius had joined us. I found myself wistfully recollecting the memory of solitude at my own table. Older girls had absolutely no respect for privacy.

"An opportunity to get away with murdering a soulless ginger that steals my food?" I snapped, crossing my arms. The effect of my gesture did not go as according to plan. Rachel and Annabeth only laughed. Laughed! At _me_!

"Not quite," Annabeth said, smirking sadistically at me. I suddenly feared for my life.

"Tell him, Annabeth."

Annabeth took a seat next to Rachel, snatched the last of my nuggets, and began to explain the sudden modification in my life.

"You have the non-negotiable opportunity to go to school!" Annabeth said with fake cheer. Rachel added in jazz fingers for special effect.

"I'll be going where?" I asked, narrowing my eyes. This had to be a joke.

"School!" Rachel replied cheerfully as she ate another of my nuggets, and my soul ached for its loss.

"That does _not _sound like an opportunity that I'm interested in," I told them, making a mad grab for the remains of my meal, but Rachel was too fast. She grabbed the plate and hopped up from her seat with the quick grace and precision that only a ninja could possess.

"That's where the non-negotiable part comes in," Annabeth countered, snapping her fingers in my face to get my attention. "You kind of don't have a choice."

"I don't understand."

"Chiron said all you do is loaf around and make a general nuisance of yourself. And who could blame him? You wake up late, use all the hot water, and never attend classes," Rachel said from over Annabeth's shoulder.

"I'm not a nuisance!"

"Nico," Annabeth sighed, "you were supposed to teach a class this morning, and Percy had to fill in for you. And you've missed patrol every day this week. It's a wonder Clarisse hasn't strangled you yet."

I looked over my shoulder, as if my Clarisse senses were tingling. Sure enough, she was glaring at me from across the dining pavilion, over two rows of tables full of loud demigods enjoying their lunch. She had a bent fork clenched in her fist, and she was actually _snarling_.

"So you're just going to kick me out? Why can't you just tack on a few extra chores to my schedule?"

"Because we've tried that and you still don't do them."

I stayed silent, because I had no argument to counter that statement, and anything I would have said would have made me look foolish. And if there was anything that Nico di Angelo was not, it was a fool! Instead, I glared at them, because surely all the evils of the world were the result of these two people. They only laughed at me.

"Oh, Nico," Rachel sighed dramatically, "It's only school. It'll beat the lazy out of you and teach you discipline and all that jazz. It'll be good for you."

"I beg to differ, you nugget hog!" I snapped, adding an extra dash of malice in the glare I sent her way. Whilst making certain that she was aware of my great, burning anger for her misdeeds, I wondered why she wasn't getting fat from her nugget intake.

Rachel Elizabeth Dare was tall and thin, and could easily pass for a supermodel if you gave her weird clothes and heavy eyeliner. The only thing that could prove she wasn't was her daily calorie intake. Rachel ate like a hoarder hoards. Which would normally be really disgusting, but as the virginal Oracle of Apollo, she wasn't exactly trying to impress anyone. I couldn't blame her for letting herself go.

The whole time I'd been lost in thought, Annabeth had been rambling on about something that was probably important, and Rachel had wandered off to find more food. Annabeth handed me a stack of papers in a manila folder, so to prevent her inner hag from suspecting that she didn't have my undivided attention, I took it from her and nodded as I flipped through the pages, pretending I knew what they were. I'd figure it out later, I told myself. The last bit of the stack was four or five pages thick, stapled together with the name ATTANUCCIS written in big, block letters. I turned the page, and on the back side was a grainy picture of a family of five, a man and woman, a kid around my age, judging from his size, and two little boys, one around the age of seven, the other maybe three or four.

"Who are these people?"

"The Attanuccis," she said, pronouncing it "at-uh-new-cheese". "They're a family in Chesapeake, Virginia. You'll be staying with them for the semester."

"They just agreed to let me stay with them? They don't even know me! They have two little kids and they would just let some strange guy they don't know into their house and let him live there?"

"Actually, you are distantly related to them on your mom's side. David, the man, he's descended from your mother's sister. Maybe two or three generations back, or something like that. They are under the impression that you are Maria di Angelo's great grandson."

"My mom had a brother?" I asked incredulously. "How do you know that when I don't? I looked for months on , and I never found anything about my family!"

"Daedalus' laptop has advanced search settings. It was relatively easy."

"How do you know they aren't monsters trying to kill the only son of Hades, huh?" I asked, childishly scrambling for an excuse not to go. I refused to wake up at the crack of dawn to sit in a prison for seven hours a day and make a fool out of myself as I struggled to read books and calculate math problems. I was no scholar.

"We did a background check. They're as mortal as they come." Rachel had returned, bearing a peace treaty of a bowl of Fruit Roll-Ups, which I refused to accept, because I was a petulant child with a tendency to hold grudges.

"Anyway, Chiron wants you to leave tomorrow morning so you can get settled this weekend and start fresh on Monday morning," Annabeth said, ignoring Rachel when she stuck her tongue out at me.

"If you aren't awake and packed by seven thirty, I'll pour ice water over you," the soulless ginger threatened.

"Would you?" I countered.

"Absolutely!" she cried, and knowing a battle when I saw one, I immediately threw down the metaphorical gauntlet and challenged her to a thumb war, which I totally would have won if Rachel did not have freakishly agile fingers. I hoped she would get arthritis in her later years.

**Hmmm…. Nico turned out a lot more different than I had had expected. He's sort of rude, actually. But my love for him has not been diminished! I shall remain a loyal fangirl forever and ever and ever and I think you get the point.**

**I think this is going to go much smoother than I thought it would, though. Which makes me feel all fuzzy inside. :)**

**As always and shall forever be, reviews are welcome, as are favorites and alerts, although they don't get me quite as excited as reviews do. Flames are also welcome, although I would prefer it if you could keep the negativity to a minimum.**

**Um… I'm probably forgetting something else to add here….**

**I'll remember it eventually.**

**Probably.**

**Please submit your review right….**

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**HERE!**


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